Spain's Jewelry Hotspot -- The Massana School in Barcelona

Information

The Escola Massana

In Spain, the Escola Massana was responsible for disseminating new ideas about the redefinition of applied arts and contemporary jewelry, particularly when in the late fifties Manuel Capdevila was commissioned to create the jewelry department and organizes its classes as an open classroom, where they have a place all kinds of ideas and new materials for jewelry, pushing the idea of design above all uncontrolled and stereotyped form. Since its establishment, the Department of the Escola Massana Jewelry has always been sensitive to international flows of renewal redefinition of jewelry. The formal break with the traditions and conventions are faced with an innovative spirit and creative jewelry open to experimentation, diversity, and the expressive and reflective of contemporary art.

Borders are abstract concepts that defines the beginning and the end of something. Limits are boundaries that the human mind undertakes himself to run away from the abstraction of the world. Since the beginning of our existence, human being began to define concepts and materials which do not reach an understanding. We have fragmented units and sketch out what you can not measure. We limit an horizon which is not from anyone. It is from everyone.

A month after the 2010 earthquake I travelled to the main damaged area. I gathered pieces of wood, remains of the houses that the tsunami took away. I have used them in the way I found them, in their “raw state” to create a series called FROM ORNAMENT TO PLAIN.

Understanding and comprehending our interior by the means of my hands, being conscious of the great complexity our being represents, how we work; admire our most precious possession, even when it is incomplete, ablated. The infinity of possibilities that all these manners of viewing ourselves offers is what motivates me to continue creating around my leitmotif: the human body.

Set of earrings and rings made in gold white and rhodium polish i black and yellow gold mate.

Small spheres arranged on the platform of work and patience have detailed micro-spheres located around the cylindrical helix as a template. All welding has been a Boolean solution.

The set is for a doctor, a researcher in genetics.

Elisabet Puig

Convergències

Textile, cotton thread, paper, kapok and gold. 60 x 75 x 14 mm.

Circular spaces where universal themes converge and intertwine, themes that revolve around lost nature, loose sketches and basic sensations.

Ramon Puig Cuyàs

Series NET-WORK (subtle Architectures) nº 1427

Brooch. Oxidized nickel silver. 65 x 90 x 20 mm.

“Net-Work ” series is the pleasure of playing with lightness. They are like fragments of cosmic weightless architectures, which, worn safely on our body, subtly modify the relations and contrasts between the body and the space that surrounds it, projecting it beyond its every-day limits.

This piece, from the series "Landscapes", materializes a world of symbolic spaces. The habitat as an identity project of relationship between body and thought, and the environment, creates an image of new realities, where a labyrinth of spaces is organized leading to intimate and secret shelter.

Discussion Forum

The Escola Massana is Barcelona’s municipal Art and Design centre. It is located in the beautiful building of the former Hospital de la Santa Creu. Legacy of the Barcelona baker and philanthropist Agustí Massana, the school opened its doors as an academic institution on 14 January 1929.The Escola Massana’s educational programme encompasses three conceptual areas (visual arts, applied arts and design) for three educational levels: Basic Education (Artistic Baccalaureate), Further Education (Advanced vocational training programmes and a university degree in Art and Design) and Continuous Training (beginners and specialist courses, leading to non-official qualifications recognised by the Education Department of the Autonomous Government of Catalunya, as well as UAB Specialisation Courses, and UAB Free-Choice Credits).In Spain was the Escola Massana the responsible for disseminating new ideas about the redefinition of applied arts and contemporary jewelry, particularly when the late fifties Manuel Capdevila was commissioned to create the jewelry department and organizes its classes as an open classroom, where they have a place all kinds of ideas and new materials for jewelry, pushing the idea of design above all uncontrolled and stereotyped form. Since its establishment the Department of the Escola Massana Jewelry has always been sensitive to international flows of renewal i redefinition of jewelry. The formal break with the traditions and conventions are faced with an innovative spirit and creative jewelry open to experimentation, diversity, and the expressive and reflective of contemporary art. Contemporaneity to be understood as a look into the future.The Escola Massana has continued working with the idea that jewelry is an art that comes from direct experience in the building, which rises in the confrontation between ideas and materials, through a dialogue between thought and hands that give shape to the matter.The objectives of the Department of Jewellery are…Continue

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Amberif Design Award 2019
20Mar2019 - 23Mar2019
Gdansk International Fair Co.
Gdansk, POLAND
The aim of the competition is the design of an original piece of jewellery with amber, inspired by the yearly topic of the contest. The…"